Monday, July 27, 2015

Without entering into a lengthy and probably controversial discussion of spirituality or beliefs, I want to discuss how I have been inspired and share some of my writing with you. My spirituality or feelings of connection with my God come at times when I am contemplative, under stress, relaxed or are unexpected. During some of these times I find myself talking to him and even creating something in my mind. Do you know those times when words just start to form and you have to write them down, those times when you are talking out loud to yourself? Those are the times when I know I am being inspired to write. So, I write.Unfortunately, I can't remember exactly what was going on in my life when I wrote this, but I called it 'A Psalm' for a reason. When I was first discovering my faith as a Christian, I read the Psalms A LOT! I connected to them because they are poems, song lyrics, direct messages to God. I wanted to have (and still want to have) a directed link to God. David wrote many of the psalms as his expressions of great emotions toward God. Sometimes he was angry, sometimes he doubted, sometimes he expressed deep faith and love. The overall feeling of this psalm is a desire for connection, not wanting to be left behind or forgotten. I can see a strong desire for hope and belonging. Also, I believe that I needed spiritual strengthening.

A
Psalm

By
Kimberly L McClune, January
18, 2013

Diffused
light from the bright morning star

Emanates
through a maze of frosted branches.

Fingers of
illumination pattern the blue tinted ground.

A glowing
countenance gracefully peers from beyond

Bearing a measure
of hope to my longing my soul.

Oh, light
that brings peace and love

Renew my
spirit, fill the depths of my soul!

Shine your
light in and through me.

Reveal your
truth to my hardened heart.

Shower me
with fulfillment and joy!

Do not deny a
weakened spirit.

Open a portal
to the inner sanctuary

Hardened by
disappointment and fear.

Pour out your
soothing balm to cleanse

And heal the
wounds left by an ordinary life.

Oh, mighty
and righteous giver of peace,

Wondrous
lover of needy and aching hearts,

Let your love
reign in my gasping soul,

Lift up my
wounded spirit,

Wash me clean
of all wrongdoing.

Heavy heart,
wounded and sore

Hold fast to
that one remaining thread of hope.

Don’t loose
your grip, but cling to it

As if nothing
in the world can move you.

For this is
the path to enlightenment.

Hope does not
fail, love does not leave

Peace is
never far away.

All around
are signs of faith and healing.

Open the
heart, the mind and the spirit

And all shall
enter in, together at last.

Whether you are Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, or have any other faith, we can all relate to similar spiritual needs. We want the belonging and the comfort of a faith in something greater than ourselves. I encourage you to embrace your spirituality as it relates to writing and see what you come up with when you bring the two together. Writing as an expression of yourself, for some, is the only way to write. For others, writing can be a way to escape yourself.

Monday, July 6, 2015

In this post, I’ll be giving you some ideas for writing
prompts, as well as sources for finding them.
Perhaps, I’ll even give you an example of one or two of mine.

As I’ve discussed in previous posts, the best way to get
better at something is to keep doing it.
Practice, like with an instrument or a sport, will help you to get
better. Getting better and seeing
improvement in your own ability is one of the best ways to be inspired, at
least for me, to keep working at it.

Writing Prompts are a great way to challenge yourself to
try new things, new themes, new styles and new genres of writing. I find they can help to bring me out of a slump too. There are many different types of
prompts.

If you’re a story writer, a good source for writing
prompts could be the newspaper. Review
the headlines to find a situation or story that interests you and, without
reading the newspaper’s article, write your own article or story. Or, you could buy books that have prompts
like, The Writer’s Book of Matches or
1001 Prompts to Ignite Your Fiction.
I found out about this from Writer’s Digest

online. You can find it on Amazon or at a local
bookstore.

On the website Creative Writing Now, www.creative-writing-now.com, you
will find hundreds of ideas for writing poetry, as well as tips and advice, and a
bevy of other helpful things that writers like to poke around and read.

You could chose to write about an image or painting or
other visual stimuli you encounter or peruse in the course of your day. You can also simply search for images of a
certain thing, situation, feeling or word on your favorite internet search engine,
like Google. I searched ‘images for
peace’ and got a load of “Peace Sign” images and doves holding olive branches
and people holding hands, etc.

Here’s a writing prompt with a visual for you to
contemplate and write a poem for. It can
be any type of poem in any form, just use this prompt as your inspiration. Try giving yourself a time limit for your
piece.

The sun is rising.

Here's what I threw together in 10 minutes based on this
image and these words.

Misty sunlight scrunches my eyes.

Still water slides past my weighty and sluggish strokes

As the long night turns to new day.

Faded, the world drifts past.

Molten gold swallows my oar as it pushes on

While daylight unfolds before me.

I would love to know what you come up with from this
prompt. It would also be great to hear
from you about where you get ideas for poems and what inspires you.